


When the Time Comes

by UnintentionallySketchy



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Closure, Drama, F/F, Fluff, I'm in my feels, Not Really Fix-It, Post-Canon, Put Them Back Together, Romance, like a lot, reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:08:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27170180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnintentionallySketchy/pseuds/UnintentionallySketchy
Summary: “I have been waiting for this my whole life.” She whispered in your ear and you laughed. You laughed because you haven’t known her more than a few weeks and how could she know that she’s wanted you her whole life?You laugh because you have been waiting for this too.or;Jamie meets her other half. And she wouldn’t change their journey even a bit.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 47
Kudos: 294





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm not entirely sure what this is? I think mostly this was my way to cope with the extreme anxiety that this show has somehow embedded into me over the past week. I think it's because holy wow am I Jamie - all the way down to my flannel and faded denim collection. And as somebody who's biggest fear is to watch my wife be taken by disease (and watching my grandfather die of Alzheimers) this show just somehow punched me swiftly in the jugular. 
> 
> So here is part 1, it's really just my take on canon because I don't think I can really drift away from that. Part 2 will take more liberties but still fall into canon.

_ You’d do it again. _

That’s all you can think as you step your right foot into the cold water. You can barely feel it. You know it’s cold, you  _ know  _ it, and you can feel that it’s lapping against the sides of your calves, the sensation of it all. But you can’t actually  _ feel  _ it’s icy rot burn your skin. You can’t feel what’s coming next.

You can’t feel how toxic this filthy pond is. You can’t feel the death that lies under its surface. You can’t feel the evil that has haunted this fog for years, decades, centuries. You can only feel the pull at what’s buried deep inside you tethered to the bottom of that lake.

You can only feel the warmth of the bed you left what feels like days ago but it was probably yesterday. You don’t know. You can only think of what that bed has brought you for the past thirteen great good goddamn years. 

You can feel your wife’s breath on the back of your neck. You can feel the safety you’ve cocooned yourselves in for over a decade. You can feel the memories the two of you made in your small apartment above your small flower shop in your small adopted hometown in Vermont.

The first place that truly felt like  _ home. _

You can smell the perfume she bought you. You remember it, the one she bought you your first Christmas in the states. It smelled like cardamom and lemon and it didn’t suit you, not really, but she loved it and you loved her so you wore it until it ran out and then you bought another bottle. And another and another and the way she put her nose in your neck and just  _ breathed _ was worth every drop.

_ You’d do it again. _

The water is up to your neck now and it’s soon. The cold has begun to numb every part of your body and soon it will numb your lungs as it fills them up and you float to the bottom where you belong.

With her. 

Because for thirteen years you’ve belonged to her. 

Not entirely, not in the way that it consumed you. Not in the way that didn’t allow you to be you. Not in a way that kept you from becoming who you always longed to be. No, not like that at all.

But in a way that your soul was stamped. In the way that you could never belong to anybody else. In a hauntingly beautiful way that made your bones ache and your heart tear inside your chest. 

Your head goes below the eerily still surface and you search. Your eyes try to catch up to your heart because your heart knows  _ exactly _ what it’s looking for. Your heart has known since you left the apartment with nothing but your wallet and the clothes on your back and you boarded a plane and you don’t think you’ve blinked or cried or breathed because-

Your heart is already at the bottom on that lake.

And when you see her - oh, God, when you see her. Any air that has been in your lungs is gone because it can't,  _ it can’t.  _

You scream and you cry and it’s for nothing because she’s gone and she’s not taking you too.

_ Dani would never _ .

But why can’t she? Why can’t she just this once be selfish?

If you can just hold yourself under long enough, you’d be with her soon. You’d be with her forever, like you promised her when you put a ring around her finger, and you could put this nightmare behind you. But she won’t let you.

Something pushes you up -  _ up, up, and away -  _ and your arms start to give out and you’re losing the battle you came here knowing you weren’t going to win.

You never won with Dani. You couldn’t. You never wanted to.

And so you sit on the bank of the lake and you look at your wedding ring and you cry. You weep because your heart is at the bottom of that lake and it’s never coming back and it was only thirteen years and why couldn’t you have more but-

_ You’d do it again. _

* * *

You were ten years old when your mom walked out and you were left alone with Mikey and your dad and the bottle he took to nightly.

You loved your dad, you did. He was gentle and warm and he would sit you on his lap and read you stories and he always smelled of soot and dirt and scotch. 

But he was never there. And he couldn’t be. Not when your mom ran off one morning with some bloke named Charles and nothing but a note on the kitchen counter for you to read when you got home. It was too painful for him to be in that house. Not alone, not without her.

And when he was there, his mind wasn’t. His body was present but oftentimes it was filled with poison and his mind was somewhere else, somewhere far - somewhere better, likely.

So you picked up what chores you could. You cooked and you cleaned and you washed the soiled linens and dried Mikey’s tears and you ducked from Danny’s open handed blows. And it worked for a while. Your dad would come home late at night and he would pass out on the couch with an empty bottle beside him and you would pick it up in the morning and make him toast.

And you felt like if you could just do this, if you could just make his life easier, maybe he wouldn’t walk out on you too. Maybe you all could be a family again.

But then one day while you’re trying to make porridge for Mikey because he’s pulling at your legs and he just won’t stop wailing, a pot boils over and the stove catches fire. And you try and you try and you try to get Mikey to safety but it’s just so much and you’re just so small and you fall to the floor below the stove and the water boils over and you and Mikey are caught in a cascading waterfall of heat and flames and-

You burn on your right shoulder and it hurts and blisters and bleeds. You have no choice but to take you both to the hospital and soon they are calling Danny and your dad and the police and you’re sleeping in a boarding house with twelve other kids waiting to find out where you go next.

Mikey cries at night and you wait for him to wear himself out to fall asleep. They come and get him the next morning and take him to a nice home in York to a family who always wanted a baby but could never have one.

You don’t see him again. 

Nobody comes for you, not for a while. Nobody wants a ten year old with a scar on her shoulder. So you hop around from house to house, and some of them are fine and some of them are rotten. The rotten ones stuck with you. You remember the way the men would grab at you too rough, too intimate, too much. 

It got worse when you turned fourteen and you started to look less like a child and more like a woman and you cursed and you drank and you fought back. That just made them angry and it made you start to lose a little bit more faith in the world.

So you left. 

You hopped a train to London and you lived on the streets for a while. You found a few more boys like you; alone and cold and hungry. You became a family of sorts. You would share places to huddle in the rain and split a bacon sandwich from a kind stranger.

And then you met Eliza. And she was beautiful and haunted and she found you sitting on the Tube one day. She gave you a bag of crisps and a bottle of water and offered you a shower and a couch and you didn’t know why you said yes but you did.

And then Eliza moved you from the couch to her bed and you let her kiss your neck and feed you as much Indian food as you wanted and it seemed so perfect. Until it wasn’t.

She was ten years older and you worshiped everything she did and said and thought until one day you couldn’t tell where you ended and she began and you felt her twisting inside you and pulling at your veins. 

You belonged to her and in every way that she knew it. It was her flat, her clothes, her food. It was her way, and you were meant to do as she said. She possessed you; mind, body, and spirit.

She taught you so much. She taught you how to make love to a woman like you were in love. And then she taught you how to  _ fuck  _ like you were angry and numb. She taught you how to smoke, and drink, and shoot up.

She taught you how to score from the lowlifes on the corner. And then she sent you out on your own to score for her. And you wanted to stop but you also wanted to stop  _ feeling  _ so much because you knew that people weren’t worth the heartache that crept up into your throat each and every time they let you down.

And soon, scoring turned to using which turned to buying which turned to selling which led to you living back on the street. And you were comfortably numb and it was fine because you were so sick of pouring your love and effort and tears into people that left you behind. Everyone left you behind.

It was too late when you felt the cold cuffs being slapped around your wrists. You were sixteen and you were so far gone.

* * *

You got off easy, only four years. You’d be out just after your 20th birthday and you were going to keep your head to the ground until then. 

You slept, you woke. You barely spoke to a soul.

It put a lot of people off - namely, the group of women twice your age and twice your size who looked at you like a free pass to push around and push into dark corners when nobody was looking. 

It was miserable and it was humiliating but you bit your lip and kept your head pointed down because you wanted out of here in one piece and you wanted to start somewhere new - far away from London and Leeds and streets and cities.

You slept, you woke. You barely spoke to a soul.

They made you go to group therapy 3 days a week and at least one hour of designated alone time bi-weekly. You absolutely hated it. You didn’t feel the need to talk about what had or hadn’t happened to you in the painfully long but terribly short six years when your life fell to pieces.

It was done and you were done and nothing was going to bring Mikey back or your dad out of the ground. People weren’t worth it,  _ you aren’t worth it. _

That’s how you felt sitting alone every day in your cell, staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the tile. You counted the times the sun went up and down. You avoided going out into the yard, you avoided eating in the mess, you avoided the showers and the halls. You became just like your dad; surrounding yourself with nothing but dark and cold and things that would burn and die.

But then your counselor, Tamara, told you that you weren’t going to get anywhere in life being brash and stubborn and young and dumb.

So you started talking, and before you knew it you were lighter. The burdens of those years fell off your shoulders and you began to sleep through the night.

You slept, you woke. You barely spoke to a soul.

In the evening you buried your head in books filled with gothic prose and tragic loves. 

In the day, you buried your hands in soil and roots. You kept busy tending to the garden and making life out of the death that surrounded you.

You liked how it felt to hold these fragile foundations of life in the palm of your hands and gently cradle them into their womb in the ground. You liked that level of power over the things that happen in this rotten, rotten world.

Soon, you were adding books on botany and bulbs and you were learning about how these beautiful petals and stems can bloom from mud and ashes. 

You learned how to rebirth yourself out of the same mud and ashes. You learned that you could bloom and become a bud anew. You taught yourself how to breath and fight and nobody helped you, not a single soul.

It was just you and the plants. The plants that wouldn’t,  _ couldn’t,  _ leave you behind. No, they would die, and they would be reborn, and you would care for them in any phase of their journey. 

Before you knew it, your four years were over and you were thrown out into the world again - determined to make yourself better.

You were 22 when Henry Wingrave met you at a corner store putting together a bouquet of flowers - for the woman he loved in the echoes of the dark - and offered you a job. 

* * *

You get a flat above the only pub in the quaint town of Bly. 

It’s tiny and it’s dark but it’s yours and you’ve never had anything truly  _ yours _ before.

It feels nice to have your own space, your own bed. You aren’t staring down two other cell mates or a woman who you swooned into letting you sleep in her bed for a night. You aren’t having to pretend you are something you're not when you’re in your own space. 

You sleep, you wake, you read, you drink. You sometimes bring back a girl but she never stays the night. You never want her to stay the night. You don’t even like to know her name, not really.

Along the way you’ve realized that people aren’t worth it, they aren’t worth the trouble of loving them only to lose them in the end. It never was, it just took you a few years to figure it out.

And you don’t really need anybody, no not really. Not really at all. You never have. You like your life just the way it is.

* * *

You were 30 when you walked into the kitchen at Bly Manor - that wretchedly wonderful place - and saw her.

Henry told Owen who told Hannah who told you that she would be here today. She was expected, but she still caught you off guard. She was beautiful which you had expected. She was fresh like morning dew, which you had expected. But she was something else, something more-

She was a nervous little thing, she was. She stumbled over her words and she fidgeted with the ends of her sleeves. You didn’t need to get attached to another one, not after what happened the last time, so you put your head down and your hands in the ground.

You thought about Rebecca often. Flora found her and you found Flora and you’ll never get the image of her bloated body lying lifeless in the middle of the pond. You never quite believed the story - that she had waded out into the water out of sheer heartbreak when Peter left. You didn’t understand how a person could have that sort of hold, that sort of tether. Dying for somebody, dying because of somebody, dying from the pain of losing them - it just didn’t seem like something that another person, a sane person, would do. [you would come to understand just how wrong you were.]

Rebecca was pure, but she was flawed. She loved too hard, she loved the wrong person too hard. And you knew, you  _ knew  _ that their relationship could only end badly.

But you don’t get involved. You didn’t get involved with her and you aren’t about to get involved with-

She was grotesquely American. Unfortunately so. Her voice was high and sharp and she moved about quick like a mouse. She always teetered on the edge of timid and spooked and she only seemed to settle when you looked at her.

You could see darkness drowning in her eyes and you weren’t going to get tugged down below the surface with them.  _ You weren’t. _

What good could it do you? So what if she was beautiful and weird and mysterious in a way that had to leaning in to watch the way words formed on her tongue. 

_ You really, really weren’t. _

Until-

She walked into your greenhouse, opened up her mouth, and she said-

“I, uh, I- I- thought you might want a sandwich.” She shuffles towards you and cautiously hands you a plate. You contemplate it for a moment, before taking it from her hands and nodding.

You look up at her through your eyelids. She’s really quite beautiful when the sun streaks through her hair.

You look at her for a minute while she rocks on her heels, unsure of what to do next. You can tell she’s nervous with the way she shoves her hands in her back pockets and looks over her shoulder.

“Okay well I’ll just-” She moves to go back into the house and you find yourself protesting against your best judgement.

“You can sit.” She whips back to look at you, unsure if you were speaking to her directly. You motion to the chair besides you. She doesn’t move and you suddenly wonder if she wants an excuse to leave. “Well go on then, I won’t make you.”

She shakily perches herself on the edge of the seat while her hands rub at her knees. You can’t help but watch her. Watch how she moves about, like she’s waiting for something to catch up with her. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

She sits like somebody, somewhere, something, is going to spring up behind her and pull her down into the dirt. She waits and you can see questions in her eyes and wonder in her heart. You see the spirit of a child with the soul of a woman who is longing for peace. 

_ You weren’t. _

“So.” You take a quick bite of the sandwich on your plate and watch as she waits on your next words. “Tell me how why you decided you wanted to be Mary fucking Poppins.”

She laughs and you decide right then and there that you’re going to do stupidly reckless things to keep hearing that laugh as long as you can. 

This damn Dani Clayton and that damn laugh.

* * *

It’s later when you see her crying outside the front door that little piece of you desperate to make her smile rears its nasty little head again. 

You can hear how her voice shakes and you know how dangerous it is to get involved here. Just another heartbreak waiting to happen because everyone leaves you, eventually. Her time, too, will eventually come to move on from Bly Manor. It’s no use, it’s no use-

But still, her breath is catching in her throat and you know this is beyond Bly, beyond what you’ve seen her accomplish already with those blasted children in such a short amount of time. This is deep rooted and you can’t help yourself from wanting to fix it, fix her.

“So if it's child rearing advice you’re after.” You finish and she laughs despite herself. A watery chuckle but you sigh in relief because you’ve done your job and now you can move on. “There we are. It’s not so bad, right?”

She takes a sharp intake of breath and a soft  _ yeah _ falls from her lips. 

“I cry three, maybe four times a day around here. Five if I’m really being honest with myself.” She turns back to you. “How else do you think I keep these fucking plants watered? With my endless well of deep inconsolable tears. That’s how. That’s how I got the job in the first place.” 

She breathes once again and rubs at her nose. You know her panic has subsided now. And it’s time for you to move on too, but she’s so pretty and she’s so delicate and you just can’t leave until-

“Look, you’re doing great.” She seems unsure at your words so you say them once more, once harder. “You’re doing great.”

“Thank you.” She looks over her shoulder at you and smiles.

“Anytime.” And lord help you, you mean it. “Alright, well, back to it then. Chin up, Poppins.”

_ You weren’t. You weren’t. _

* * *

You have a way of doing things.

It’s not so much about the boy, or the lack of respect, or even the fucking flowers. Not really. It’s about so much more and so much- so much- 

You do your own thing on your own time and you cut your own damn roses when you damn well please and-

“No, you’re right. You’re right.” Dani may just be placating you but it works and you settle. “I’ll talk to him.” 

-and maybe it’s not about the roses. Maybe it’s about how somehow, someway, in just a short week, this girl, this obnoxiously American girl has settled into your mind. And the thorns of her own demons are poking at your resolve and you so badly want to trim them away. You so badly want to place her in soil and watch her bloom and grow and spread open to the sunlight and take in the water from the trees and the sky.

You have a way of doing things and it’s slowly being threatened by this family and this girl and you can feel it starting to eat at you already. And the worst part is that you like it. You like being part of this family and this place and you don’t want it to change and that’s the big problem.

“Look can we just go back to the bit where you were being mental and I had to talk you down.”

She laughs but you mean it.

* * *

She swears she saw Peter Quint and Hannah believes her even if you aren’t so sure. 

You believe she’s seen  _ something.  _ Most of you had, even though you never talked about it.

The first time you saw something that most definitely was there when it most definitely should not have been was only a few months into your first year at Bly. You were out in the greenhouse when you noticed a soldier standing at attention in the center of the drive. You yelled and yelled at him to go, get off the property, he was trespassing - but he never moved and then he just was… gone.

It was an old house with a sordid history, so the legend about town went. You weren’t naive enough to believe it wasn’t possible for ghosts to be there, to be present in your presence. 

And it wasn’t customary to scare off the new girl with tales of ghosts and haunts so, better to let her believe it’s just Peter Quint. 

Despite you believing he was scarier than any dead soldier.

But, you sit and wait with her, nonetheless. And you drink and you talk. She tells you her story, albeit you know there are parts missing. Big parts. The parts that cloud her eyes.

She tells you about how she was overwhelmed with work and the midwest religious family and how she was going to get married and instead she decided to come to England in search of starting over. 

You understand because you did that too - started over. Here. At Bly.

She tells you about how she likes to paint and how she loves kids, even wants one or two for herself one day. She doesn’t talk about her family or her friends or her former fiance who she left behind. She doesn’t talk about any of her demons and you don’t ask her.

You want to know more, every inch, every nook and cranny of her mind; you want to know it like you know your own. It’s a deep seeded urge to crawl up under her skin and embed yourself into her soul. But it’s dangerous, too dangerous so instead you just say-

“Rather that was you curled up there?” You flick your chin in the direction of Hannah and Owen. You almost want her to bite. 

“Every girl in the village is mad for him. He doesn’t even know it, which makes it even worse.” You wish it was that easy for you, you do. To receive kindness and love and the warmth of a woman by your side. You’re jealous. You’re jealous of Owen but mostly because Dani’s answer could be  _ yes. _

Instead, she turns her attention back to the polaroid in her hand that she’s been studying all night, “they look like Bonnie and Clyde.”

You scoff because Bonnie and Clyde is just wrong, for her. She wanted so much for herself, so much for her future and he just… stomped on it. And she contorted herself so much into what was good for him, so much until she gave up and walked into a lake and… her death haunted you more than you care to admit. He was selfish and he was manipulative and he reminded you so much of Eliza and-

“The wrong kind of love can fuck you up. Follow you. Make you do some really stupid shit. And those two were in the wrong kind of love.” 

You’d done stupid shit. Toxic love, that’s what it does. You were swallowed whole by a woman you thought, you wanted to think, wanted the best for you. But you were wrong just like Rebecca was wrong.

“And those two were in the wrong kind of love.” Sometimes, you weren’t sure if there was a right kind of love. A love that made you whole instead of left you as half a person. You’d never felt it, how can you be sure it exists?

“We’ve all been in the wrong kind of love for one reason or another.” 

“Mmh but I saw how he twisted himself into her. Burrowed in deep.” It was a healed scar for you, your own wrong kind of love. But when you poke a scar, it’s sensitive all the same. “I know why so many people mix up love and possession. 

It took you a long time to understand that what you had, what Eliza was, that was possession. That wasn’t love, it couldn’t be. You weren’t sure you actually knew love, or believed in it. 

“But guess what that means? He didn’t just trap her, he trapped himself. And I hope she haunts that fucker forever.” You believed in the ghosts more.

“People do, don’t they? Mix up love and possession.” Dani’s eyes begin to swirl once again, and once again your heart begs to know what lies under them. 

“Yeah, they do.” And you know, you really do.

“I don’t think that should be possible. I mean they are opposites really; love and ownership.” You know she’s felt this too. You know she understands.

“Yeah.” You know you’re getting lost, lost in her, lost in this moment. Lost in how you even turn around from falling down this tunnel that you’ve spent your life scared of.

And you think maybe, just maybe, love  _ does _ exist.

* * *

You were 30 when you fell in love.

She kissed you once in the greenhouse. She kissed you again in the rain.

You told her about the moonflowers. About how they bloom and die and how they need such meticulous care but their beauty remains. You told her how precious, how delicate their life cycles are. And she just lets you talk and you think it's refreshing to have somebody hang on the words you say. You’re so used to jokes and laughs that you think maybe, maybe your words - your deep words - were only meant to be heard by her. 

You knew it the moment your lips touched that this was it - this would be the last woman you would kiss. You didn’t know it was love, no not yet. But you felt it somewhere deep within you that you’d never be the same. But somehow, someway, this was your moonflower.

You took her to bed, that first night you were together, and laid her down gently. You asked her if she was sure. 

“I have been waiting for this my whole life.” She whispered in your ear and you laughed. You laughed because you haven’t known her more than a few weeks and how could she know that she’s  wanted you her whole life?

You laugh because you have been waiting for this too.

She tastes like honey and rain. She smells like lavender and a new perspective. And when you taste her, when you finally taste her, she tastes like forever.

* * *

  
  


You wake up absolutely panicked. 

Your tether is being pulled. Something inside you is screaming  _ no, no, no  _ and  _ Dani, Dani, Dani.  _ Something is lasso’d around your heart and dragging you to Bly in the middle of the night. And you know what it is, it’s dread.

You can’t breathe and somehow you know it’s because she can’t either.

You ring Owen just before you leave your flat and he picks you up because he feels it too. You feel bad, the way you tell him to go faster, faster. You’re running out of time. You’re losing yourself and you’re losing her and you don’t know why but you just know.

When you arrive, you run to the lake and you scream for her. 

_ Dani, Dani, Dani. _

You pay no mind to anything but her. Your tether, being pulled into that lake and you just know you’ll jump in after her if you need to. You’d do anything.

You hear her, you hear her cry  _ \- you, me, us.  _

But then, she’s there and she’s next to you and your forehead is against hers and you are telling her to breathe.

But then, you’re holding her in bed while she cries.

But then, you’re listening to her telling you that  _ she’s  _ still there. She’s scared and so are you. She’s scared because of what’s inside her and you’re scared of it too. But mostly, you’re scared because you’ve chosen this and she hasn’t.

But then, you’re promising her you were never going to leave her.

And you know you won’t.  _ You weren’t.  _

You’ve chosen that the work of loving her is worth the pain of losing her.

You were 30 when you nearly lost her before you even had her.


	2. Chapter 2

_ You sleep, you dream, you wake, you never forget. _

You prefer being asleep now, you have since the day she left. Because at night, you see her. You see her and you can touch her and you can hear her like she’s there, like she’s right there and so are you.

You remember Flora calling it being tucked away. That’s what you are, you’re tucked away with her in a place where you’re safe and you’re happy and she’s real.

And when you sleep and you dream and you can tuck yourself away in the safety of her, you remember what it was like and why all of this, every single goddamn moment of this, was worth taking her hand and walking out of Bly by her side.

You hope she dreams of you too but you fear that she’s faded away into the murky bottom of the lake; that she’s tangled with the brush and her mind has been dulled to remember anything of you. And it’s been seven years and it’s been too long but you can feel her like she’s still there and you can create these pockets of time where she’s with you and you sleep.

Sometimes you would swear you can feel her when you wake. Just a ghost of her touch on your shoulder, but then it’s gone. You run to the tub and to the sink and to the glass of water you leave by your side and you search and you search and you always come up empty.

But you can smell her. She smells like honey and rain and you just  _ feel  _ her. You never see her, you never see her face but-

When you sleep, she’s there. And you never forget.

* * *

_ Dani is doing it again. She’s looking over her shoulder; looking around, through, and over every head of every person that walks in the coffee shop. _

_ “Poppins?” You say. She doesn’t look your way and she just hums in response as her leg keeps tapping up and down, up and down. _

_ “Poppins.” And this time you say it with enough command in your voice that she drags her eyes away from the door and to you. Her eyes are wide and her lips are pressed together tight and you giggle at the concern on her face. “You wanna tell me what’s bothering you, then?” _

_ “-I-I… what is she going to say?” _

_ “Fuck if I know.” _

_ “- Jamie- ” _

_ “Okay sorry.”  _

_ You both are silent again as you take a small sip of your tea and watch her over the rim, smiling into the cup. You love watching her, you love riling her up. You love to do it because you know everything is going to be fine and you both are going to be fine and she’s just being so… Dani. _

_ And boy, do you love Dani. _

_ Her leg keeps bouncing and it’s starting to get annoying the way it rocks the booth so you press your palm down on her knee and it stops. She breathes. You always tether her back to the ground. _

_ “Poppins,” and you let the way it rolls off your tongue drag low, right into her ear so she turns to look at you. Her face is close and her breathing is starting to even out and you smile right at her and she smiles back.  _

_ “Okay, okay- y-yeah you’re right.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head and she lets out a light chuckle under her breath. “You’re right, it’s going to be fine.” _

_ Just then a woman, a harsh looking woman with a long dress skirt and a suit jacket, walks through the front door and she’s looking every bit of somebody you don’t want on you want telling you no. You feel Dani stiffen next to you and you rub a small circle on the inside of her knee before moving your hand back into your own lap. _

_ “That’s her, that’s-” _

_ “-I know, Poppins.”  _

_ “That’s- okay, do you have everything?” She looks frantically around the table to make sure all the folders are in place. _

_ “Nope. Forgot it all back at the flat.” It’s a joke and it’s absolutely the wrong thing to say because she rolls her eyes at you in a way that says ‘don’t’ and then stands to greet the woman who is now at the corner of your table. _

_ “Miss Clayton, I presume?” She holds out her hand and Dani takes it right away and nods her head in a way that you think it might pop off soon if she doesn’t sit down and just breathe. _

_ “Hi. Yes, hello, I mean- I’m Miss, well Dani. Or-or-y- you can call me Danielle, Dani. Whatever works.” Dani is stuttering over herself and Jesus Christ, down girl.  _

_ The woman, to her credit, smiles and sits and you give her a nod as if to say hello and please go easy on her. You take another sip of tea and the woman looks over the documents you slide to her in a manila envelope. Dan is shaking again and starting to bite at her nails and you have every urge to swat her hand down but you can’t. _

_ “So Miss Clayton. You’re looking for a small business loan?” And it would be you - this whole flower shop was your idea after all - but she’s the one with a better resume, and a masters, and the credit and well, she’s American, so it just makes sense to do this in her name. _

_ Dani nods and her leg shakes and you’re about to break in to handle this yourself until- _

_ “I think I can help you with that.” Dani breathes, and you smile. _

* * *

_ “Jesus Christ, Dani, will you please just let me help you?” You shout at her and it’s starting to get annoying the way she is always trying to place things on her shoulders when all you want is for her to share the weight. Christ, you’ll carry it all. _

_ She storms by you and you pull at your hair in frustration. You count to ten because if you don’t you’re going to follow her and you will fight and you don’t want to fight. _

_ This woman. This bloody woman. _

_ You hear a clash in the bathroom and you have to start counting again. _

_ "Dani.” And you hear another clash. This woman, this bloody woman. This stubborn and beautiful and clumsy- _

_ It’s silent for a few moments and she reappears, her shirt pulled halfway over her head and her shoulders hunched over. _

_ “I need help.” you hear and it’s so faint, so quiet, the smug person in you almost wants to laugh and say no just out of spite but it’s this woman, this bloody fucking woman- “I can’t do it.” _

_ “Baby, come here.” You say instead and she shuffles towards you as you lift the shirt over her head and run her hands over her sharp collar bones and down to her ribs. She shivers and you smirk. “What did we learn?” _

_ “Don’t go skiing drunk.” And you kiss her gently and help her into the shower, broken wrist and all. _

* * *

_ She’s drunk. You both are. It’s New Years and it’s your third in the states and there’s champagne and fireworks and her eyes are sparkling and so is the popper in your hand. _

_ She’s twirling down the street and you love watching her smile like this, watching her so blissfully ignorant to the world around you. It’s such a difference from when you met her just a couple years ago when she was on edge and nervous and so very haunted. _

_ She’s laughing about something somebody said to her in the bar and you are only half listening because she’s talking to herself and you can barely make out the words she says. _

_ “Can you believe it? That man. Calling me a housewife.” You shake your head because you have absolutely no idea what or who she’s talking about. _

_ “Positively absurd.” You deadpan and grab her hips so she doesn’t walk into the trash can on the curb.  _

_ She laughs like you’ve said the funniest thing and you can’t help but lick your lips at the way her eyes twinkle. You push her forward and you’re almost at the shop, and the flat above the shop, and ready to put her to bed and begin the new year, new decade.  _

_ “I could be one, you know. I’d be good at it.” She stops and stares at you, now serious. _

_ “Good at what, Poppins?” You ask and you’re so close and just a few more steps. _

_ “Being a wife. I’d be a great wife.” You smile because her brows are furrowed and you know you won’t get her to move without coaxing her a bit so you brush your finger against the back of her hand that hangs at her side and you tilt your head and lower your voice. _

_ “I’d marry you in an instant if this blasted country would let me.” And you mean it but the law hasn’t caught up to your heart and it breaks a little that you can’t give her that. You put your key in the door and push it open. “Alright here we go then.” _

_ She smiles and she starts skipping up the stairs now and whatever you said worked because not three minutes later she’s ripping your shirt off and you’re ringing in the new year. _

* * *

You’re 35 when she asks you to marry her.

It wasn’t the first time she brought a dead plant home. Your home was basically an orphanage for any sad looking shrub home Dani found on the side of the road. And each and every time you fell a little more in love with this girl and her heart and how big and open and beating it was.

She was real and she was yours and every day she just got a little more real and a little more yours and you knew she was it.

So you should have known the second you touched that gold band what she was about to ask but still, you couldn’t wrap your mind around this woman, wanting you, forever. 

“Here’s the thing. You’re my best friend. And the love of my life. And I don’t know how much time we have left,” You want to jump in and scream _ no, no, no. We have time. You have time. You have all the time.  _

“But however much it is, I wanna spend it with you.” And you heart is screaming  _ yes, yes, yes _ because of course you’d spend every moment with her, in this life and the next. But it’s not time, it won’t ever be time.

“And I know we can’t technically get married, but I also don’t really care. We can wear the rings and we’ll know. Okay? And, that’s enough for me. If it’s enough for you.” And it’s almost silly that you have to agree to this because of course it is. She’s always been, always will be, enough.

You laugh, “I reckon that’s enough for me, yeah.” And this woman,  _ this bloody woman.  _

You’d marry her now, you’d marry her always. 

And when she kisses you, you’re reminded of how you got here. It’s not lost on you that she told you, once, a long time ago, how afraid she was of this very thing. How afraid she was to tether herself to one person, the wrong person, for the rest of her life. 

But now you’re crying and it’s happy and she’s crying and you love her and you’re pretty sure that the future is better than you could have imagined.

* * *

_ You’re crying and she’s crying and you don’t understand how you got here.  _

_ Everything was fine, it was. It was going so well and you were thinking about making this move permanent and then all of a sudden she says I can’t and you should go back to London and this was a mistake. _

_ You are searching every corner of your mind for what you did wrong and your throat is starting to close up and you aren’t sure you can breathe without her. _

_ “Dani, please talk to me.” She’s packing her bag and for each shirt she puts in, you take it back out and throw it to the ground. You’re starting to panic because you think she’s really serious this time.  _

_ “I can’t do this, Jamie. I can’t.” Her tears are flowing now and you can hear the thickness in her mouth as she speaks. You can hear her words break and your heart is shattering. _

_ “Tell me what I did, I can fix it. I can-” _

_ “It’s, it’s not that easy, Jamie-”  _

_ "Make it easy! Please!” You are begging her because for every shirt you can’t throw back, she’s getting closer to walking out the door and leaving you standing here in a hotel room off the interstate somewhere in New England with nothing but your heart in your hand. _

_ She’s zipping up her suitcase now and you can feel it coming and you might just do something stupid and-  _

_ “It’s you-” _

_ “Jamie.” _

_ “It’s me.” _

_ “Stop it.” _

_ “It’s-” _

_ She’s in your face and her lips are on yours and you can’t breathe so she’s breathing for you and pretty soon you can taste salt and you know you’re crying or she’s crying or you’re both crying and she’s shushing you.  _

_ “Don’t,” she whispers into your mouth and your breath is catching in your throat. _

_ “I’ll do it for you.” You say back and it’s desperate and you mean it. You’ll take this burden from her, you will.  _

_ “I don’t want that.” She wipes at your tears. “But I can’t put you through this, too.” _

_ And you understand now. You understand why she wants to leave you like this, leave you behind, leave you intact. She thinks it will be easier than if she leaves you like- _

_ “Right, well, why don’t you leave that up to me, hm?” And it takes a few kisses to her neck but she finally nods and you think you’ve won. _

_ “One day at a time, Poppins.” And she kisses you again and this time it’s calm and slow and you think you may have found the key. “One day at a time, remember?” _

_ “Jamie I need you to promise me you’ll leave if this gets too hard.” She’s shaking her head and you grab her face to steady her. “Promise?” _

_ It’s a promise that’s easy to make because you know you’ll never walk away. Nobody is going anywhere. _

* * *

_ You promised her. _

_ And you really did mean it when you did. You had absolutely every single intention to follow through but honestly, you over estimated just how much work it would actually be and- _

_ You’re sitting on the couch when you hear her key in the door and you spring up as if that’s going to help you. She pauses before she can even shut it behind her and raises her eyebrow in your direction and you think she already knows that you’ve broken your promise. _

_ You move swiftly and shut the door while backing her into it. You think if you can just distract her long enough with your tongue and your hands and right here on the couch then maybe she won’t go back there and maybe you’ll be able to avoid a fight. _

_ And it’s easy enough at first when you slip your tongue in her mouth and you can hear her start to moan like she does when she’s already ready for you and you know her body and it really wouldn’t be that difficult- _

_ But she pulls away and pushes your chest to lead you back to the bedroom and you can’t let her back there so you grab her hand and pull her back towards you and kiss her hard. But you’re too strong and your kiss too desperate and she knows you so well that you give yourself away because she immediately pulls back and her tone grows heavy and you hear, _

_ “Jamie.” _

_ “Okay, listen,” you start but she’s already walking away from you. _

_ As soon as she opens the door her face isn’t surprised, it’s expected you think. You’re expected. _

_ She waves her arm as if to say see but you act shocked at her reaction as if somehow you didn’t promise her you would have the bed built and somehow she must have imagined the whole thing. _

_ “You see.” She gestures to the unpacked boxes and upright mattress. “You said ‘I’ll get started on the bed, Dani. It’ll be easy’.” _

_ And it’s funny, when she gets mad at you. Because it’s never for long and it’s never for real and you’ve got the perfect answer when you lean in close and push her against the propped up mattress and whisper in her ear, _

_ “I don’t need it horizontal to fuck you on it.” _ _  
_ _  
_ _ And when you kiss her neck and press your thigh between her legs, she moans into your ear and you know you’ve won this battle. _

* * *

_ “You really don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” You say to her and you mean it because you know what it’s like to have a family that’s never been all the way there and you’re her family now and you want to protect her from anybody who can’t love her for exactly who she is. _

_ “No-no- I need to do this.” You haven’t seen her this nervous since you arrived back in the states a few months ago. “Now that we have a plan, at least for now, I need to tell her. It’s important that she knows.” _

_ You nod your head and hold her hand as she dials the phone number and it rings three times before she hears a ‘hello?’ _

_ “Mom?” Her voice is shaky and you know this is hard for her. Hard for a number of reasons; where to start, where to end, what to say. _

_ She hasn’t spoken to her mom in a few months, as far as you know. You don’t know much about the woman they call Karen, other than she is a conservative Christian with a proclivity for vodka, straight up. _

_ As far as you know, Karen has no idea that Dani has even returned, that she’s even- _

_ “I’m back, Mom.” It’s silent on her end for a moment and she drops your hand to fiddle with the ends of her shirt and tucks the phone into the crook of her neck. “Yeah, just got back. Well, back to the states.” _

_ It wasn’t totally true and it wasn’t totally untrue. You had been in the states for about three months now, driving up and down the east coast, hoping from town to town, hoping to lose her somewhere along the way. _

_ “No, I’m actually not- no, I’m not coming back home.” You grab at her fingers that are beginning to fray the edges of her sweater. _

_ “I just-we just-” You know the we in that sentence probably won’t sit well and you know this is why you’re here, beside her, while she does this. _

_ “Um,” she looks at you and bite the edge of her lip. She’s weighing her options and deciding if she’s going to dive in or wade on the shore. “Jamie.” _

_ You smile at her, you hope it’s reassuring. _

_ “Actually, she is-” _

_ And then, “Mom, I need you to listen-” _

_ And then, “Jamie is my-” _

_ And then, you can see her deciding and you nod because whatever she decides right now, for the both of you, you’ll go with. Whatever she decides is the right choice. You hold her hand and kiss the back and she breathes and then, _

_ “Actually Mom, Jamie is my girlfriend. She’s my- she’s my girlfriend.” _

_ You can’t hear what’s said on the other end but you can’t imagine it’s much. You decide it’s not enough of whatever Dani needs to hear as a tear escapes her eye and you brush it away softly with your lips high up on her cheek.  _

_ It’s only a few minutes later but it feels like forever when she puts the phone back on the receiver and leans into your side and cries. You hold her and you let her because you don’t know what was said but you know what wasn’t and you know her mother didn’t beg her to come home and she didn’t ask to see her and she didn’t tell her she loved her before she hung up. _

_ You never had a mother, not really, but you imagine the pain of being rejected by one is even more painful than never having one to begin with.  _

_ So you kiss her on the head and you offer to draw her a bath and when she nods and asks you to join her, you have no other answer but yes, yes, yes. _

* * *

You didn’t notice the water at first, not right away. Which, in hindsight, seems like an extreme oversight on your part. 

Which is how you’ve been going through the last few years, if you’re being entirely honest with yourself. You’ve been digging your head in the soot - just like your father - to what’s happening to your wife; slowly, achingly, painfully.

Your wife, your wife who you love and would do anything to keep.

“Well the queue was shite, but I’ve got it. Our union is officially civil. We’ll marry again when we can.” You yell into the flat. “It looks like that’s enough for now.”

It’s always been enough, just you and her. It’s always been enough for you to look into her eyes and know that the person you were meant for is looking right back at you.

“Dani.” And when you don’t get a response, “Dani?”

And you hear it. You know the sound because you’ve heard this before. You’ve heard it when you’ve found her staring into the bottom of the sink after brushing her teeth or into a puddle after a long summer rain. It’s been getting worse lately, more frequent, if you really pay attention.

And you do, you do pay attention. But you don’t want to think about what it means because you know what’s at the end, when you can’t stop the water or you come home too late and you can’t bear the thought. You found Rebecca floating once, and you couldn’t handle finding your wife, your Dani, the same.

You wouldn’t survive, you couldn’t.

You turn off the tap and you shake her back to you.  _ Come back, come back, come back, I’m here. It’s me. _

And she does, “do you see her?” she asks you and you answer the only way you know how. The only way you’ve known for the last thirteen years and,

“I only see you.” 

You’ve only ever seen her. In a crowded room, in her reflection, in your dreams and in your heart. Her. Only ever her.

She apologizes for the water and it’s the last thing from your mind because you may finally need to come to terms with what’s going on here and you can’t, _ it’s not time. _

“I’m so tired, Jamie.” And you know, sweetheart. You know. “It’s like everyday I feel myself fading away but I’m still here and-”

“Hey,” you pull your arm because no,  _ it’s not time,  _ “You’re still here. You’re here.” 

_ Please, stay here, with me.  _

“It’s like I see you right in front of me, and I feel you touching me, and every day we’re living our lives and I’m aware of that but it’s like I don’t feel it all the way. I’m not even scared of her anymore. I just stare at her, and it’s getting harder and harder to see me.”

You want to scream,  _ but I see you. I see you. It’s not time. _

“Maybe I should just accept that.”  _ No, no, no. It’s not time.  _ “Maybe I should just accept that and go.”

_ No. You’re not ready. You’re not ready to lose her. It’s not time.  _

You shake your head and you can feel the tears sting your cheeks, “No. Not yet.”

You’re being selfish and you know it, but you can’t do this without her. You can’t live without her. And you won’t. You can’t.  _ And it’s not time.  _

“Jamie.” The way she says your name feels like she’s asking for you to release her from this, release her from this wretched curse and move on to where she can rest but you can’t. You’d never be able to let her go.

“Look, it’s fine if you can’t feel anything, then I’ll feel everything for the both of us.” And you know it’s true because you already do. You already feel it so deep. “But no one is going anywhere.”

“You’re still here.”  _ and it’s not time and I’m not ready.  _

You’d never be ready. How could you? You tried to fight off loving this woman, and then you fought to love this woman, and now you’ll keep fighting whatever is trying to keep you from loving her for the rest of your life too.

“What if I’m here, sitting next to you, but I'm just really her?” And you’re so, so fucking scared because you don’t even believe yourself anymore when you say,

“One day at a time.”

You were 40 when it finally hit you that the love of your life is running out of days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah it's gonna be 3 Parts instead. Whoops.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then.

_ You sleep, you dream, you wake, but you never, ever, forget. _

You are sitting across from Flora and you barely recognize her. She’s an adult now and she’s two years shy of 30 and you’re getting older too. 

You’re 50 now and you miss her, your Dani, every single moment of every single day. You tell Flora as much, in so many words, but not entirely. Flora doesn’t remember who she is, she doesn’t remember who you are, she doesn’t remember her sacrifice and what you’ve lost in return.

She’s crying over the fear of losing her love, her light, and you can’t fault her for that because you know how that feels. You know because there’s a hole in your heart at the bottom of a lake and nothing can be done now to fix it.

Flora tells you how he’s her forever person and you know because she was yours. 

Dani was your forever, in every sense of the word, and now she’s destined to be lonely without you forever. 

“How am I supposed to live a life that he’s not in?” 

“You shouldn’t be thinking of losing each other at all.” You didn’t. You never thought of what it would be like to lose her. You never wanted to. “Don’t let that hang over your happiness right now.”

_ One day at a time, Poppins. _ That’s what you would tell her.

“Enjoy that easy silence with him. It is rare, what you’ve got.” You know this too. You had the rarest of loves. The type of love that hurts to speak of once it’s gone. The type of love that you haven’t mourned. 

You can’t bare to start.

“But, when the time does come, years and year from now, mind you, it will be hard every day and it won’t get easier.” You can barely stand to sleep in a bed without her and you haven’t in years. “But, eventually, after some time you’ll find little moments, little pieces of your life that remind you of him.” _Dani, Dani, Dani._

“And they will be silly or dumb,” And those are your favorite

“Or they’ll be sad and you’ll cry for hours.” And those come the most.

“But there will still be a piece of him and you’ll hold him tight. It’ll be like he’s here, with you. Even though he’s gone.” You know she’s here. You can  _ feel _ her, you can smell her.

And for all the bitterness you have felt towards this girl, this  _ child _ really for years now because you faulted her for taking the love of your life away; you know that if Dani was sitting here, on Flora’s wedding day, looking at her, she would do the same thing all over again.

Because that’s who Dani was. And Dani wouldn’t, Dani could never, sacrifice a child. Not for herself, not even for you.

You were 50 when you made peace with her being gone.

* * *

_ Dani really did love kids. That’s obvious, really, considering how you met her. The awkward au pair that tripped into your heart when she had no business being there to begin with. _

_ You were horrible with children, dreadful really. Your temper was short and you could barely stand to humour their good nature. But not Dani. Dani was perfect with them. She had edge and she had bite but she was sweet and she was, _

_ This was the closest to family you ever got. You never had any interest in child bearing or child raising or children in general, really and these, they got on your nerves all the same. But you were protective of them, of this family you had built. _

_ Miles was a little bastard of a child who would rattle your cage more often than not, but he had his sweet side and you marveled at his brain. He was wise beyond his years, but of course he had to be. He was thrust into the role of an adult at only 9 - watching out for his sister, this estate, his future wealth. _

_ Flora was a sweet girl. She was bright and she was happy and she had a vocabulary that was comedy, even to you. But they were work and they required discipline and constant attention and care. _

_ So you loved them for what they were. But they were kids and you had already tried taking care of kids once but you were a kid and kids can’t raise kids and you never really wanted to try again. _

_ But Dani loved them and she was so good with them and it was insanely attractive and you couldn’t help but show off in front of her when it came to them sometimes. _

_ You were the coolest, Flora would say, but Dani was brilliant.  _

_ You watch her, now, from across the garden. They were out in the field, and Miles was chasing butterflies while Flora was searching for clovers in the ground. You watched Dani as she laughed at whatever Miles showed her and you thought to yourself, what a good mother she would be. You let a smile pull at your lips as you thought of it, her, with a young child in her arms. _

_ You think about what it would be like to see those kids with bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair and how she could chase them around on a cool summer night, fire bugs lighting up the sky.  _

_ You think about how she disciplines these kids, here and now, in a way that makes your blood pressure rise and your heart beat in your throat. You think about how Owen and Hannah and even Rebecca constantly would coddle them and make excuses for their behavior but Dani, not Dani, she wouldn’t.  _

_ She was stern and she was brash but she was commanding in a way that made you wonder, just for a fleeting moment. And when you would scoop them up in your arms and help her put them to bed, you would wonder some more. _

_ You think - maybe kids wouldn’t be so bad. _

* * *

_ You watch her, watching them.  _

_ They come into the shop every week; a mother and her daughter. They come every Monday and you build them something to take home and smell and appreciate for the week.  _

_ And while you speak with the woman about her day and her week and what they have been doing on the farm, it soon became Dani’s ritual to take the young girl by the hand and let her pick out just one flower, on the house, to make the arrangement special just for her. _

_ You would watch them, out of the corner of your eye, and you would try not to let the pain that began to hollow out in your chest eat you up. It was in the way Dani just looked at this young girl. It was the same way she looked at a boy in the park with his dog on your Sunday walks or a little girl in a little dress all muddied on the front from playing in the rain. It was the same way she looked at Flora and Miles all those years ago. It was the look of a woman who so desperately wanted to be a mother. _

_ It hurt to watch them because you already knew the answer to the question you were afraid to ask.  _

_ You don’t ask, not yet. But it’s tumbling through your mind all day and through dinner, and dishes, and - you’re curled up on the couch now and she’s got her nose in a magazine and you think it’s better now and all of a sudden it’s coming out of your mouth and, _

_ “Fancy having one of those for ourselves then, Poppins?” _

_ And it was a joke, mostly to get her to talk to you. But now she’s looking at you with a furrow in her brow and you can tell she has no idea what you’re talking about. _

_ “A wee little Dani running around, dirtying the place up, spreading germs and crumbs.” You smile and brush a lock of her bangs behind her ear but then you see she’s looking at you with a sad smile and you see both eyes, blue and brown, begin to water. _

_ “You know I do,” she said. But then she shook her head and this time, with a shake in her voice, “You know we can’t.” _

_ You nodded because you did know. You really did, but, _

_ “We could adopt you know? Trick somebody into giving us their little one. You can, anyway. Or I can. One of us- we can, Dani.” You rub your hand through her hair as she leans against your shoulder, curling into your side. “If you want, we can.” _

_ She leans back to kiss you. Just a brief rub of her lips across yours but you can feel the sorrow pouring out of her already. _

_ “I want one, Jamie.” And you’re about to make the biggest decision of your life if that’s what she wants. “I want one, with you, so badly.” But the way her voice trails off. But, but, but. _

_ “I don’t want to leave them without a mother.” And that’s her fear and you know it’s valid because it’s your fear too. “I don’t want to leave you without a wife and them without a mother. I-I-I couldn’t-” _

_ She’s crying now, full body, and you are suddenly realizing that maybe you should have left well enough alone and just kept your mouth shut.  _

_ You bring her head to your chest and you coo in her ear to breathe. It’s several minutes before she seems to collect herself and your shirt is wet and snotty and you’ll need to change before you climb into bed but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Nothing but her. _

_ It’s silent for a while, until, “I’m so sorry, Jamie.” And that’s so ridiculous because she’s already given you so much that your heart is full every day and this was never something you wanted or needed. So you kiss her head and you say, _

_ “I have you, that’s all I need.” You mean it in every way. _

_ But you wish you could give this to her. _

* * *

_ You didn’t feel like there were any words you could give him that would help, so you stood in silence with your hands in your pockets and you listened.  _

_ You listened to people pass through and wish Owen their best. They gave him encouraging words of support. Told him that she was in a better place. You scoffed at that, how could anybody know? _

_ Nobody speaks of her life, but only her death. They speak of her moving on, of her passing, but they never speak of her living, and her thriving. You think what a waste of years that feels like. That anything she accomplished was simply forgotten because her mind was no longer hers. You think of what a shame that would be to become a forgotten memory even while you were still here. _

_ You had known Owen for close to four years now and each year you watched the way in which he spoke of his mum alter and change. He was a brilliant man, a kind man, and you watched how her illness ate at him, rotted at his core. You watched how it consumed his life, his entire life. He couldn’t be happy, he could only be with her. _

_ You can’t imagine wanting to live a life like that. Like either of them. You couldn’t imagine wanting to lose who you were, slowly, becoming somebody that you didn’t recognize and that even those closest to you didn’t know you at all.  _

_ Put me out of my misery, that’s what you would say. Just shoot me. _

_ You’d hate to be a burden. You’d hate for somebody to have to constantly remind you to turn off the stove or lock the doors. You’d hate not being able to drive yourself or forget the face of the person you loved. You’d hate that. _

_ And for Owen - you have to imagine that while the pain of losing her is raw, there must be peace in her moving on. She was gone long ago, barely able to recognize him or remember their lives together. You can’t imagine that burden, that emotional exhaustion of caring for somebody who is slowly losing themselves and losing their place. _

_ Owen looks blank. His face is tired, drawn in, dark. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days and that the mere work of being here has nearly devoured him entirely. _

_ You think you’d want to be selfish and walk away before you ever got yourself in a situation where you would have to be the caretaker of somebody in their final days. You think it’s be too hard. _

_ And as you watch them lower her into the ground you think, you’re lucky you don’t have anybody mean enough to you to ever have to go through this. _

* * *

You were 43 and you were alone.

There wasn’t a funeral. There was nothing to bury and you couldn’t bring yourself to put an empty coffin in the ground. She was so much more than a hollow box sitting in the ground.

You couldn’t stand the thought of standing in a room, dressed in black, with people telling you they were sorry for your loss. You didn’t want to hear people tell you she was in a better place or with God now. She wasn’t. She wasn’t at all. She was at Bly and she was at the bottom of a lake and she wasn’t better off now than she was when she was in your bed.

You didn’t want to be a widow. 

It took hours for you to pull yourself off the property and away from her. You waited the entire night to see if she would emerge from the water and walk the property but she never did.

By dawn the next day, you found the nearest hotel to Bly so you could stay as close as you could in case she came back. You wanted to make sure she could find you. You waited. Waited to see if maybe your Lady in the Lake would follow you. 

Each moment that passed, sitting alone, felt like a century. You sat in the tub until it grew so cold that you shook. You shook and you cried and you hoped that something, somebody, would come and take you back to her. That she would show her face in your reflection.

You couldn’t bear the thought of going back home. Not without her. Not to an empty bed, an empty flat, and empty life. You couldn’t bear seeing her stuff, seeing her clothes and her shoes and her books.

So you stayed in England for a while. You lost count of how much time, but eventually it became too painful to wake up every morning and realize she still hadn’t come. So you went to Paris and showed up at Owen’s door. He didn’t have to ask why you were alone. He already knew.

Eventually it was time to fly home, to clean up your life and take all the next steps.

You called her mother and she was curt, but thanked you for letting her know. You called Henry and he offered you whatever he could. You called the bits and pieces of friends that were important to Dani over the years. They shared your grief 

You didn’t tell anybody what happened. You simply said that she had passed. Most didn’t ask, not to you, though it was probably gossip in the town. You assume they thought she was sick, that she took her own life, that there was an accident. 

But it was none of those things and all of those things at once. 

She wasn’t sick, but what was inside of her ate away at the person she was, the person you loved. It wasn’t an accident, it was on purpose. It was headstrong. It was lingering in the shadows for years. And, mostly, she didn’t take her own life, she saved yours. 

Dani had paid the ultimate sacrifice and now you both were cast to spend the rest of your time on this dreadful earth alone.

You were 43 and all you wanted was one more day.

* * *

_ You walked back to the hotel under the lights. She was silent as looped her arm through yours and laced her fingers through your hand deep in the pocket of your coat. _

_ You turned to her and smiled and you loved this woman. _

_ It was your honeymoon, of sorts. You had decided after you exchanged rings and vows in the comfort of your own home that it was only proper to take a trip somewhere romantic and when she suggested Paris, Owen, and Europe you jumped at the chance to escape. _

_ “So it was a nice meal, what’n it?” You squeezed at her fingers and she turned to look at you. _

_ She nodded and smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes. You knew why. Owen said the kids didn’t remember a thing. Didn’t remember you or her or, _

_ “The name is a bit chippy but I think Hannah would have gone bonkers over it.” Another nod and hollow smile. “Didn’t care much for his hair though.” _

_ Silence. _

_ “I was thinking tomorrow we could take a train out to the country. Maybe a winery.” _

_ She nods and looks out at the river.  _

_ "Hey.” You stop in the road and pull her to face you. “Talk to me, Poppins.” _

_ “It’s nothing, really.” But her eyes look down and you can see them dulling in the reflection of the moon. _

_ “Dani,” you duck to catch them and when you do she locks on, “it’s okay to be angry.” _

_ She lets out a deep breath and she nods quickly. Trying to convince herself to have this moment, this moment to be upset and sad and whatever else she wants to feel.  _

_ “I-I-I just can’t believe they don’t remember.” And neither can you. Not really. You understand that trauma has a different effect on kids than it does on adults and there’s likely a million reasons they don’t remember any of what happened at Bly. And you’re a little hurt that they don’t remember you but you’re mostly hurt that they don’t remember her.  _

_ Her; who gave up everything, is giving to eventually give up everything, just to protect them. Her; who is saddled with this curse that seeps into every pore of your lives together. You both are paying the price so that they could go on not remembering and it’s hard. It’s hard to understand. _

_ But you don’t want to spend your honeymoon angry or sad or confused. You want to spend it in love, with her. You don’t want to spend a minute of any day doing anything but loving her. So, _

_ “Well, I’m fucking pissed. Those little snot nosed twats.” And you’re kidding, sort of, so she laughs and you smile and take her into your arms. _

_ Dani Clayton and that damn laugh. _

* * *

_ “Jamie Clayton.” You roll it around on your tongue for a moment. “I’dunno Poppins, don’t you think it’s a bit... Americana for me?” _

_ She rolls her eyes and kicks at your thigh to move over in the bed. _

_ “Why don’t you just take my name instead, then?” You ask her, half kidding, as you pull back the sheets for her to climb in beside you. _

_ “It isn’t even your real name. It’s a name you made up.” You can hear some annoyance in her voice. _

_ “Ah but…” You kiss her on the side of her neck and let your tongue roll over her skin. “Dani Taylor seems to have a nice lil’ ring to it, I reckon.” _

_ “No.” But her no doesn’t feel so much like a no when it turns into a moan at the end. _

_ You let your hand slip inside her shirt and your fingers grip at her ribcage. You’re just trying to take the piss out of her, of course. You have no intention of keeping Taylor. _

_ “But you love to say my name.” You take her earlobe in between your teeth and you bite down. _

_ “Jamie-” _

_ “-See-” _

_ “-Shut up.” _

_ And later, when she lies beneath you, sweaty and sated, you whisper in her ear, _

_ “Jamie Clayton it is.” _

* * *

_ It’s addressed to ‘Jamie Clayton’ and it hurts because you never actually got around to changing until a few weeks before she was gone. _

_ You kept putting it off, like you’d have time later on. Another time, maybe. Another night, maybe. _

_ You went through so many of the last years like that. Like you’d have time later. Later, later, later. You wish you had never put anything off until later. You just hoped that later would never come. Until later was gone and all you had was before. _

_ Now you lived your days in before. You lived in the what you should have done sooner, what you could have done better, what you wanted to do longer. All of those were to love her. _

_ The idea of seeing them all again stung. You had heard from Owen that Flora was engaged a few months ago and you never dreamed that you’d be invited to the wedding. You hadn’t spoken to her since she was a girl, a child. You hadn’t spoken to Henry since Dani died. It hurt too much. _

_ But Henry invited you and you suspect that it has something to do with what you and Dani had to give up in order for his daughter to have her day, her life. _

_ You weren’t going to go. It would hurt too much and, if you were being completely honest, you were always scared to go somewhere she might not know, that she might not be able to find you. Even after all this time.  _

_ But then Owen called when you never sent your RSVP back and he said, _

_ “Jamie, she’d want you to go.” And for a moment you are angry that anybody would tell you what she would want because she’s your wife and you’re the one who ran out of time to love her. But you also know he’s right and you know she’d be mad to know you were even hesitating.  _

_ Dani never hesitated, not for a moment, not when she knew something was right. _

* * *

_ It’s my time. _

_ I will wait for you until it’s yours too. _

_ I love you completely. _

_ Dani _

_ You read it five times before you put it back on the dresser. _

_ It can’t be. Not yet.  _

* * *

You were 52 when you got sick.

The doctor said it was inoperable and that you had four to six months.

Everyone looked at you and spoke to you with pity - like you were dying - but really; you were getting ready to go home.

* * *

_ “Are you ready now?” She motions to the suitcase at your feet. _

_ You watched her close as she pulled a pair of your ratty old sweatpants over her legs. Her skin was so smooth, soft, perfect. _

_ You had a flight in the morning, Heathrow to JFK. Two tickets, one way. She asked you at least ten times that night if you were sure, if you were ready to give up that little flat about the boring little pub. You were sure. _

_ “I think I’ve got just about everything here.” You turn to her and throw the last of your sweatshirts in your suitcase. _

_ You hadn’t worked out the details yet. You hadn’t figured out how you were going to pay for things once Henry’s check ran out. You didn’t know where to go once you got to America or what you were going to do. You didn’t even know how long you were going to have with her. _

_ But you weren’t going to turn back. There’s no way you were going to let her go, not now, not when you just got her. _

_ “You know, I’m getting kind of hungry.” She says and your stomach growls. _

_ “They have some food at the pub downstairs.” It’s crap and it’s nothing like Owen’s but it’s food and you both haven’t eaten a proper meal in days.  _

_ “Fancy a boring lil’ drink then, Govna.” She says in that god forsaken cockney accent and you laugh at her while you wrap her up in your arms. _

_ “Only if you promise to never say ‘Govna’ again.” You kiss her quickly on the lips and the taste is so uniquely Dani and suddenly, like a train, it hits, _

_ “This is my favorite of us.” _

_ “I know it is.” She pushes the hair out of your face and behind your ear. _

_ You remember, you remember, “This was the first night of the rest of our lives.” And it was. You never left her side after. _

_ “But the math is wrong.” You start to think about it. You notice a scar on her arm that she got after falling off a ladder in the store. “We are supposed to be much younger.” _

_ “Thirteen years.” She nods her head and you turn to look in the closest mirror. There’s gray in your hair but you are 43 again.  _

_ “How-” You start to ask and she shakes her head and kisses you again. _

_ “Do you want to go back?” She offers you and you know what she means. Back to life, back to the hospital bed where you last fell asleep. Back to living without her. _

_ “Not at all.” _

_ And then, _

_ “Why didn’t you come sooner?” _

_ And then, _

_ “I’ve been here the whole time,” And you knew she had. You always felt her. “And you weren’t ready. Are you ready now?”  _

_ And it’s easy as it was the first time she asked you. _

_ “As long as it’s with you, Poppins.” _

* * *

You were 53 when she came back to you. And you’d do it all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd love to keep writing them. I really enjoyed these two.
> 
> If you have any prompts, send them my way!


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